


Prettiest Thing

by alitbitmoody



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Asexuality, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Other, Platonic Cuddling, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Queerplatonic Relationships, Sharing a Bed, Temporary Character Death, Touch-Starved, mention of assisted suicide, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 09:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14713391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alitbitmoody/pseuds/alitbitmoody
Summary: On balance, Dirk and the Rainbow Monster have more in common than he would have initially liked to admit.





	Prettiest Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _As time passes, Dirk realizes the Rainbow Monster has no interest in sex and indeed, no idea about how to go about it even if she did. All she cares about is getting lots of hugs, cuddles and affection generally. As touch-starved as Dirk is himself, he can relate. Parallels between the Dirk and Todd's relationship and R.M and Dirk's relationship highlighted._
> 
> Artwork by [osmundspriest](http://osmundspriest.tumblr.com) can be viewed [here](http://alitbitmoody.tumblr.com/post/174081341476/osmundspriests-fantastic-artwork-for-the-dirk).

_ 2000. _

Svlad knows that something has gone wrong when he wakes up and his door is open. 

It’s unusual. More than unusual, because he’s lived in this placidly-painted bunker for more than twelve years and his door is  _ never  _ open. His door opens only when someone is there to retrieve him -- hands grabbing, cold and efficient, sometimes with familiar faces. 

The klaxon going off is another small clue. Also, the _shouting_.

A spray of gunfire in the hall sends him diving under the bed, half an inch of space between the bedspread and the floor gives him a convenient cover but limited view point. Precarious, but he’s become someone who almost feels safe being caged in. Mostly he sees boots running, hears more people shouting, a few unearthly shrieks and the smashing of glass and steel.

He’s seen enough jailbreaks in films to recognize what’s going on -- and really, only one or two of them is enough to know. Riggins has micromanaged a lot of the broadcast media content for the younger participants over the years, but Svlad has been let off the leash somewhat the older he’s gotten, allowing for access to things like films and short-form television during both supervised and unsupervised time in the media room. 

The klaxon dies out eventually, but the screaming only gets louder, accompanied by more gunfire and the wet ‘thud’ of bodies collapsing. It sounds like, whoever may have escaped, they’re going from room to room. There’s the sounds of doors being kicked in, furniture upturned, some bizarre apologies in harshly shouted voices, getting louder and louder until they’re right on top of him... 

The scene from  _ The Criminal Code _ plays out in Svlad’s mind as his mattress and box spring are kicked away and four pairs of hands reach under to drag him out. He shuts his eyes and tries not to scream as he feels the energy drain from his body.

Everything is connected.   
  
\--

_ 2018. _

The agency is open and the agency has  _ cases _ (that never fails to make Dirk’s heart sing) and because everything is connected, they seem destined to collide with familiar faces and familiar abilities, no matter how far the case takes them from home.

This last one -- a young woman in search of a dead body -- takes them to a columbarium on Vancouver Island in Canada. 

Dirk’s never been on a boat before let alone a _ ferry _ and there’s a trace element of romance in the idea that he finds quite exciting. But before the boat ride, there’s a border crossing that only Farah and Todd can make officially (now that they’re no longer on the FBI’s most wanted list). They take Farah’s car while Dirk, who lacks a valid passport that can hold up to the increased scrutiny of border patrol, is scuttled into the back of the Rowdy 3’s van like a cache of illegal Kinder eggs. The “unofficial” crew making their own way across a mysterious landscape.

The Rainbow Monster, as the Rowdies have taken to calling her (or “Rainbow,” “Rain-beasty,” sometimes just plain “Beasty”), squeezes his arm and leans in close. Her smile is huge and, while no longer predatory, adoring in a way that makes him shrink back a bit into what he’s fairly sure  _ used to be _ upholstery, but is now little more than leather scrap covered with wool throws.

“Wow, she _ really _ likes you,” Amanda says, smiling but without the amusement or belittling behavior he might expect.

“Does she... have to sit this close?” he asks, a small squeak of apprehension in his voice.

"We can switch seats if you want to,” she offers.   
  
It’s a tempting offer. Except for the part where Amanda herself is currently seated on the other side of the bench seat, while Vogel and Gripps crowd together on the floor at her feet, huddled around a makeshift craft project -- something that might have once been a hot plate or possibly a modified lantern. It might even be Mona in yet another disguise. The “holistic actress” he’s known since childhood has been practicing light sources of late -- she is indeed luminous and can express luminosity as efficiently as any torch or gas lantern but cannot emit heat the way the majority of them would. It has her miffed and she’s determined to not give up.

Dirk shakes his head, flinching slightly as rainbow hair lashes across his cheek.   
  
“She... just really likes hugs,” Amanda smiles. “There's no end game in her mind, Dirk, I swear. Whole other thing."

Everyone always has a potential end game that they’re angling for, Dirk thinks, whether they know it or not. Whether the universe has told them or not. He doesn’t tell Amanda that. Instead, he shrinks some more and tries not to look like he’s bothered.

"How do you know? Have you asked..?" he ventures, as the van rocks to a slow halt.

“There's no one  _ to  _ ask, really. Not with Francis gone. She gives us little details here and there, as best she can. There seemed to be isolated pockets of people like her throughout Wendimoor, more or less living feral. She was alone when Silas and I met her that first time and she was alone when _ you _ found her. She has good survival instincts -- spatial awareness, knows where to find food, how to catch people...” Amanda pauses here, smiling as Dirk bristles. “Some of her social cues and interaction need a bit of work." 

“Not unlike we were when we first broke out!” Vogel says, brightly. His face is probably trying to convey understanding but lands somewhere between mania and smugness.

“Right. But hey! She’s learned like, 200 new words in the past year -- she knows all of our names, the names of cities, places, what’s food and what’s  _ not  _ food. It’s a pretty huge achievement. And we’re going to keep working on her social cues and personal boundaries. So, seriously, if you need to switch seats...”

Dirk bristles more. The Rain-beastie giggles, says nothing, and lays her head on his shoulder again. She loosens the grip on his arm so she can hold his hand instead.

"It’s fine,” he clears his throat, entwines their fingers before he realizes what he’s doing. “Can’t you ask Bart, though? I mean, she spent a  _ lot _ of time alone with Panto, both in the cell and at Wendimoor. Surely, he may have told her something?”

Amanda’s face falls, her tone abruptly sober when she speaks again. 

"The last track the Rowdies got on Bart, she was really close to Blackwing.”

Dirk’s mind flashes back to Bart’s friend, Ken, on the edge of the pool. Ken, calling him the wrong name, shooting him in the same leg where Farah had jabbed her knife into a holistic assassin too hellbent on the assumption that the universe had sent her to kill him to know who she was or where she was meant to be. Ken, trying to stop Dirk in the same way Farah had stopped Bart. 

Of course, that’s where Bart would be, safe or not. Safe for Ken or not. And, for once, he truly hoped that the universe had the obvious plan there, whatever it may do to Bart in the end.

“She--”

“I can ask a lot of them,” Amanda continues. “I can't ask that."

"No! Nor should you,” he says, blinking away the awful memories of his own recent stay.

Friedkin may not be on board anymore, but they still have Priest. And that was someone Dirk would never ask  _ Todd or Farah  _ to face unguarded, never mind the others. 

“We’re gettin’ close,” Martin calls back. “Drummer, do your stuff.”

Amanda responds by retrieving the apprentice wand from her bag, murmuring a few words under her breath.   
  
“Sit tight,” Vogel tells Dirk, clutching his knee suddenly and making him jump.

The sloshing of what sounds like water against the outside of the van is... less than reassuring. Even with magical intervention. If he  _ clings back _ to the Rainbow Monster for what seems like an interminable length of time, well, he can’t help that.   
  
\--   
  
The 2400 Motel is an art deco throwback born out of a faded postcard from the 1940s that they stumble on to,  _ coincidentally _ , just as the Rowdy 3’s van runs out of petrol. Each room has its own bungalow-style block with an attached garage. The doors still have single-cylinder deadbolts that require keys to open them, no cards. The night manager -- a greying, unimpressed woman, just nods and doesn’t ask questions as the whole squad of them pour into the front office, two of them armed with tin jerry cans asking where the nearest petrol station is.

“Hell of a first impression to make,” Todd whispers to Dirk.

“Oh, let me remind you: we’ve made  _ worse _ ,” Farah says before Dirk can answer.

The group splits into two rooms at the motel. Farah in one, Dirk and Todd in the other. Amanda, Beasty and the Rowdy 3 end up camping out in their garage in place of taking an actual room. Preferring to stay off the grid -- the “unofficial crew” -- even after Farah offers to cover their accomodation. Dirk respects the decision right up until they promptly take possession of all of the outlets in his and Todd’s room to run power to the van.

“How many things does that group need to plug in?” Todd asks, after he trips over the extension cords a third time, nearly dropping his toothbrush in the process.

“Hot plate, dvd player, Amanda’s computer,  electric guitar… I mean, those are just the things _I can think of,_ Todd. There are most likely others.”

“Well, I hope they don’t leave one of those plugged in all night,” Todd says, spitting toothpaste into the sink and running the faucet. “We don’t need to be kicked out for noise pollution. Or a fire.”

Their room came with a king-size bed. Dirk already has the bedclothes turned down and has burrowed under the duvet when Todd appears to climb on to the opposite side. His phone  _ pings _ and he grabs it from the nightstand to check it, a tiny light illuminated in the dark, a beleaguered smile on his face.

“Is that the client?”

“Right on time,” he nods, turning the phone toward Dirk to show him the phone.

_ “Heard you got in safe! (fingers crossed)” _

Beattie Marchand has been keeping tabs on the case and the expenses via text. There’s a cheerful heft in her tone -- labored, but sincere, usually punctuated with a series of emojis and colorful gifs. Dirk can understand it somewhat, given her distress in the initial visit to their office. She had been visibly near tears more than once, a veil dropping each time with a broad smile and a compliment on their ingenuity and her absolute faith that they could help her.

“She certainly likes to keep updated,” Dirk says.

“I think she’s a bit lonely,” Todd replies. “It is just her after all.”

Beattie, like Francis and Lydia before her, is an orphan. Her father passed less than a year ago after a long illness, leaving young Beattie a modest home that nonetheless dwarfs her, both in size and emptiness. Her best friend, Lena Matthews -- the dead body she has sent them in search of -- died shortly after his funeral.

“How exactly did her friend die again?” Todd asks. There are several photos in the file she gave them, taken over a number of years; two girls, holding hands or arm in arm in almost every shot; shopping, hiking in the mountains, leaning in to to the camera lens, occasionally blowing kisses. A portrait of a friendship -- a  _ connection _ \-- far too dear to lose. 

“Inconclusive. There was no autopsy,” Dirk answers. “According to the medical examiner in Seattle, she suffered a suspected stroke but they were unable to confirm it. The police investigation and statutory entitlements were tied up in legal red tape for months and then, by the time the matter was settled, Miss Matthews’ remains were... lost in transit.”

“What an awful thing to go through.”

“Yes.” The mundanities of the postal system were a horror show all on their own. Dirk had nearly seen a few firsthand, on a few near-cases. He refrains from listing them.

“Have you ever lost anyone?” Todd asks, turning to face him on the bed. “Before all of this?”

“I lost both of my parents a few months before Riggins picked me up.” The CIA man had known that, of course, and exploited the void expertly. Those memories were still a confusing mish-mash of sensations -- loss, bereavement, promised belonging but without the warmth of home.

“What were they like?” 

“Big,” he replies, after a long moment. “I was little -- they were… big. Well, relative to  _ me _ , anyway.” 

It may be terrible, he privately concedes to himself and the Todd in his mind rather than the Todd sitting in front of him, but he hasn’t thought of his parents in many years. The car accident that took them was inevitable -- one more bend in the stream of creation -- and he had only been able to see it retrospectively; without a time machine to provide a helpful clue or an assistant to keep his perspective grounded. And the traumas that followed had far outweighed that first one.

“I’ve never lost anyone. I just took a  _ lot  _ of people for granted,” Todd says, pensive and regretful. “I took advantage of people over and over again until they were happy to leave.”

“You’re not that person anymore, Todd.”

“Yeah, I know. And I know that I’m lucky... Damn, our parents are probably expecting Amanda and me to show up for Easter,” Todd says, verbally spiralling. “We got a pass on Christmas -- Amanda told them that she was feeling sick and I begged off to take care of her. I don’t think they’ll buy it this time around. And I’ve really,  _ really  _ got to stop lying to them--”

“So... we’ll go home for Easter, then!” Dirk says, abruptly cheerful.

“...Yeah,” Todd says, like a release valve has been turned somewhere. “Yeah, I guess so. Hey! We should bring Farah!”

“Yes!” he says, already mentally planning. They can get Farah to bring Tina and maybe Hobbs. Unless that many people (plus the no-doubt fractured table manners of the Rowdy 3 ) would be too overwhelming for a pair of pensioners from suburban Seattle; who had no idea their children were integrally tied to the overstretched fabric of the universe… 

Dirk can admit that his own personal barometer for “too much” is not the most precise. But, if Todd says that it’s all right...

“Great!” he smiles and Dirk can feel his chest tighten. Warm. Home.    
  
He suddenly feels the gulf between him and Todd on the mattress as acutely as a severed limb. 

He wants to lean into his best friend’s shoulder, lay his hand on his arm or the bit of his back where his t-shirt is threadbare… but he doesn’t know if that would be allowed and, if so, for how long. The line is blurred and that’s not a problem for him, but he’s keenly aware that it has been a problem in the past and could be a problem in the future, depending on what Todd wants. Between too much and too little, he hedges on the side of caution, turning to face the opposite wall and clinging to the edge of the mattress. 

\--

The columbarium, it turns out, does not contain Miss Marchand’s dead friend. 

It contains her very much  _ alive _ friend. Who, apparently, has the ability to make herself (and other people) appear to be dead. Very,  _ very _ dead. 

There’s a terrifying moment where Dirk watches, awestruck, as she literally rises from a little bronze pot of ash and bone fragments. Regrouping and receding back into flesh and form in a way that’s utterly  _ majestic _ …

...until she touches Todd’s face. And he drops heavily to the floor of the crypt, flesh waxy and grey, eyes still open, staring up at nothing. 

The sense of awe flees Dirk’s body quickly after that.  

\--

There’s a longer, more terrifying moment a short time later. Involving Todd and a local medical examiner, a scalpel and Dirk’s normally unscalable optimism pushed to an embarrassing limit in front of Farah, Amanda, and two of the Rowdy 3. 

He hasn’t thrown many punches in his life and he’s not particularly _ good  _ at it, but this one is hard enough that two of his knuckles are split and someone is shouting and there is nothing in his brain apart from  _ “get away from my friend get away from him get away!” _ His vision blurs and he hits the morgue floor hard when his knees lock up and his center of gravity ceases to function. The concrete floor is cold enough that he barely feels it.

_ “Bibbet?” _ The Rainbow Monster’s arms are loosely draped for once and she just leans in carefully, warm against his back and trilling almost like a chinchilla. 200 learned words deemed insufficient in this instance. 

Still, the moment is arguably more embarrassing for Todd who wakes up a few seconds later and sits up so quickly, the coroner’s sheet covering his body slips.

The ensuing shriek and mutual freak-out from both Brotzmans only makes the Beasty cling to Dirk further, molding herself in the form of a psychedelic shroud that clings even after he manages to stand. And Dirk may be hysterical, because all his brain can cough up is “you’re not Mona -- that isn’t how this works!” No longer sure who he’s precisely shouting at.

She only coos louder, clings harder even as he pulls himself up and stumbles over to throw himself against Todd, who is far,  _ far _ too cold. Colder than usual, obviously, what with the low room temperature, the steel table, and three to four hours of _ no vital signs. _ His friend’s hands are cold and Beasty’s hands are warm, overlapping with Dirk in the middle, warm at the back and freezing up front, like a microwaved burrito.

“Dirk?” Todd shivers, teeth chattering once before clamping his jaw shut.

“Yes?” It’s slowly hitting him that, apart from some cloistered warm bodies, and the concealing plane of a steel surgical table, his best friend is stark naked. 

He probably should have considered that at some point.

“Could you…  _ one of you _ … maybe, help me find my pants?”   
  
\--

The search for Todd’s pants is easy, but not particularly helpful. 

The coroner had barely gotten any work done before Dirk and the others had come barging in, but he’d had enough time to prep the body for autopsy. Todd’s underwear, trousers, and shirt have all been slit up the back or sides and are little more than rags by the time Farah locates them on a side table. The evidence bags containing Todd’s wallet, pocket change, and wrist watch are torn open easily and passed off to him. 

Finding Todd an intact pair of pants, shirt and a jacket takes a while longer. Because Canada in early February is not the best place to go without either of those things. Eventually, Dirk liberates some hospital scrubs and a hooded jacket from a large “Miscellaneous” cupboard.

“Tell me that these weren’t from a dead body?” he asks, clutching the blanket around his waist and visibly shivering

“Um...probably not?” Dirk offers. “At least it wasn’t yours! And these should at least keep you warm until we get back to the motel.”

He takes them with cold-stiffened fingers, struggling to get legs into leg holes, arms into sleeves. “Can we have just  _ one case _ where I get to keep all of my clothes?”

“Not this one, apparently.”

It’s meant to be a joke. Dryer than he usually aims for, but a joke. Something to bring a fraction of levity to Dirk as well as to Todd. Todd doesn’t laugh. Instead, Todd hugs him tight, still shivering, and… Dirk settles in for a long moment. Allows himself this moment, where he can wrap his arms around his best friend and just  _ be _ , without an excuse or expectation.

“Sorry. It’s just… I’m still  _ really  _ cold. I might be cold forever after this.”

“Yes, of course,” he sighs, almost bereft, a shadow of what he felt on the morgue floor less than half an hour ago. “There’s no need to apologize! I’ll do that any time you want.”

Any time.

\--

He wants to be near Todd even more after that. He wants to loom close and stay there, to touch, to feel the definitive proof that his dearest friend and partner is alive and no longer cold and dead on a crypt floor or a morgue table. 

He’s felt similar things before -- the first hug from Farah when she was out of hospital in Bergsberg, the relief that swept through him when she was vertical and breathing and able to walk up to him was immense. And yet it cannot quite rise to match what this is. 

No one is like Todd. There were one or two people  _ nearly _ like Todd at Cambridge. A boy in his first year and two more in the months before he was expelled and subsequently arrested. All morphing into… something else as their expectations took hold and Dirk’s ability to “fully” reciprocate their attentions failed. 

This, he was reasonably certain, was not his fault. True, he could not feel -- at least, not with the fervor others seemed to -- but he could  _ try _ and had tried to make up for that deficit as much as he could. It was never quite enough. Even as minor points of hope came to light: that he did feel  _ romantic _ attraction, as well as aesthetic; that he knew that attraction was disproportionately aimed at men. He knew he liked men’s faces and hands and bodies and he would do anything with them that they wanted within limits.

And, in return, he had asked for comparatively little: a hug, a close touch, a shared space. 

Never enough. Found wanting. Rejected. 

Being close was never enough for anyone, but it was the only thing Dirk had ever wanted.

He wonders, for the first time, startling pet names aside, if perhaps he and the Rainbow Monster are really all that different. If, the first time she grabbed him in a hug, babbling at him about “Bibbet” and “boyfriend,” his face had looked as baffled as Todd’s did when he climbed in his window.

\--

They stop for breakfast in the morning -- the two of them, Farah, Amanda, and the Rowdies all crowded into the same corner booth clearly meant to seat a group of six people at most. The Rainbow Monster hugs him and cuddles into his side when she sees him and, after the nightmare of the day before, it’s almost welcoming. Dirk realizes he’s holding her hand and.. May actually be  _ leaning into her  _ protectively when the waitress brings a teetering platter of waffles and poutine.

“I can’t believe I’m eating this at eight o’clock in the morning,” Farah says, looking as tired and wrung-out as he’s ever seen her.

“At least it’s protein?” Todd offers, taking a dubious bite from his fork. 

His phone pings. Dirk and Farah both lean in to squint at the message:  _ “Got motel/gas receipts! (dollar sign smiley face). Thanks for being so prompt! (heart) (heart) (star). Good progress so far?” _

“What should I tell her?” Todd asks. 

Dirk purses his lips, reads the text a second time, then a third.

“I’m curious -- what exactly is the purpose of a dollar sign emoji? I mean, the dollar sign is  _ already _ part of the normal keyboard--”

Because it’s them, and it’s Dirk, and everything in the universe is connected, the waitress recognizes Todd’s borrowed scrubs and jacket from the morgue -- specifically the crest embroidered above the left breast pocket. Vancouver General Hospital. Near the Kids Market on Granville Island. Her youngest had fractured their arm chasing their sister in the arcade, forcing an A&E visit. 

There’s a spirited debate that lasts an hour, two more rounds of coffee and another plate of waffles -- between whether the universe is directing them to the hospital, where there are sick people and germs and generally not fun things, or to the Kids’ Market, where there are  _ arcade games _ . Either way, it means another trip on another ferry, so they have to be right on this one.

They finally have Dirk flip a coin.  

\--

Kids’ Market turns out to be a large indoor fun park, open year-round but originally designed to combat stir craziness in the long winter months -- with a tavern helpfully adjacent to assist the parents’ with their own seasonal troubles.  

The tavern ends up being their next clue from the universe. Dirk knows it the second the glass hits his forehead. His vision blurs and then disappears completely as the lager that was  _ in the glass  _ runs down his forehead and into his eyes, stinging and reeking.   
  
The startled barmaid who throws it at him turns to flee out the back way,  forcing everyone else to take chase while Dirk staggers to keep up. 

There are limits to what powers Amanda’s willing to use in broad daylight, even with the apprentice wand tucked inside her jacket pocket. In the end, she can’t retrieve it fast enough for their target, who manages to lay hand on each of the Rowdy 3 on her way out, new corpses falling like a trail of morbid breadcrumbs. Todd manages to trip and fall over Cross  _ and _ Gripps, eyes wide and panicked, before regaining his footing and running after her out onto the boardwalk.

“Don’t worry!” Dirk shouts at a nearby mum, alarmed and clutching her children close. “We’re… we’re playing freeze tag!”

They finally manage to corner her behind the arcade that sparked their initial interest. Farah’s handgun had been a no-go for crossing the Canadian border, even with a license. But Dirk’s argument that she clearly doesn’t need it is proven sound as she expertly traps their target between a broken pinball machine and a cinder block wall, even evading as she reaches a suspiciously cold, suspiciously dead looking hand towards their partner’s face… Of course, she has a little help. Beasty, as it turns out, is as helpful with a rope lasso as she was with a vine. 

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Dirk offers, ever so helpful even as his throat tightens at the muscle memory. “I mean. You’re just going to upset her. Both of them. And us.  _ More _ than you have already.”

“Dirk,” Todd interrupts. “This is the woman that you saw in the crypt? Yes?” His own memory from the encounter -- from being technically dead for four hours -- is obviously hazy.

“Mmm-hmm,” he nods, vigorously, terror clutching at his throat as he recalls the last time he saw her.

\--

He sends a quick text to Beattie, one-handed -- his other hand clutched in Todd’s protectively as they ride together in the back of Farah’s car (the Rowdies’ van is... rather crowded at this time):

_ We’ve found her. Will send more info soon, once our friends stop being dead. (heart) (skull) (sparkle) (dancing chicken) _

\--

Lena Matthews stares at them all -- evaluating, then baleful -- from her place lashed to the chair by the Rainbow Monster’s talent for ropes and knots. Her waist-length hair is brown and she has a thin-lipped, colorless smile. Not that she smiles upon seeing them… or for the duration of their time with her. Which is just as well. After the events of the past two days, no one is particularly keen on smiling back at her.    
  
Lena Matthews. AKA Maria Longworth, according to her landlord and co-workers at the fun park tavern. The woman Beattie Marchand begged them to find. She’s older than Dirk, but younger than most of the Rowdy 3; all of whom awaken, shambling and drooling a bit, gray around the mouth and eyes rimmed red, within an hour of their narrow escape from the fun park. 

It’s Martin who finally picks her out as Project Wraith. The “ghost bringer.” Another friend from the old days.

“She helped us break out that first time,” he tells them, working still numb lips around the straw of a Big Gulp. “‘Took out Priest and his goons so we had long enough to get the doors open. ‘Didn’t see her much after that.”

Dirk’s mind reels in a way that it often does whenever he meets someone else from Blackwing. For one thing, it’s another subject that he was never introduced to. Presumably because Riggins determined that, like Bart before her, she was far too dangerous to contain in the presence of another subject (as wrong as he was on everything else, he thinks he was definitely correct on this point). 

Also, there’s a pang of envy at her not showing up on the Rowdy 3’s radar in the nearly two decades since their escape. He suspects her numerous “little deaths” were probably enough to throw off the scent of her energy.    
  
“So, you’ve found me,” she says, crisp and unperturbed. “Well done. Now, what exactly do you think you get to do next?”

It’s a fair question, Dirk thinks. They were sent here to recover some misdirected cremated remains (vandalism and grave desecration notwithstanding). Kidnapping and false imprisonment is a little above their pay grade.    
  
“No one’s going to keep you or take you anywhere that you don’t want to go,” Farah answers, firm and with absolute authority. “But you did attack my friends here. And  _ your  _ friend sent us all out this way to find you. Don’t you think she deserves an explanation?”

“Beattie… I should have known,” she sighs, fractured, an almost watery smile betraying the most emotion since she rose from the ashes in the crypt two days ago. “She never did know when to give up.”

There is a moment where Dirk wants to celebrate -- they have found Miss Marchand’s dead (living) body. Case closed. Did it. _ Snap.  _ They’ve found her and she’s alive (relatively speaking) and how many heart emojis is Dirk going to get when he tells her?

This moment, like all the others. ends abruptly. Because they may have found her, but, she will  _ not _ come with them. Not with the threat of Blackwing’s resurgence in the air, not with the fabric of the universe threatening to split under its own strain. Not even with her dearest friend so worried and pleading for her to come home. 

The vehemence of her refusal is disorienting and, Dirk would argue, disproportionate when compared with the methods they used to find her, none of which bordered on even _his_ so-called broad interpretation of ethical distance. And, he must say that  they’ve all been pretty understanding, considering the rather distressing methods _she_ employed to throw them all off-track.

Todd’s hand on his arm is grounding as he tries to reason with her.

“I lost my head once.  _ Once _ ,” she says, tone flat and empty. The waiver of something that might be sorrow or regret. “This...thing that I am. I can put people down for a little while, a long while, or I can put them down for good. Beattie’s father was looking down the long end of a really,  _ really _ bad time. He asked for my help, I gave it _. _ Because I was careless. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Like you’re not being careless  _ now? _ ” Dirk demands. “You have to be prepared to lose your head! That’s what it means to be alive! That’s what it means to be _ a person _ , not a thing in a cage somewhere, just existing. To care about people and risk losing them, to risk getting hurt and letting them take the risk. You’re already hurting someone just by virtue of existing and staying away. How is that not a mistake?!”

Lena is, for the most part, unmoved. Every now and then, she wobbles, like a jelly on a table that’s been bumped by an errant knee, but always reverting to placid stillness. He finds himself drilling into her long after Amanda and the others have given up. One by one, they all fall back, Dirk the only one still standing, trying to crack her wounded resolve. 

“ _ Bibbet?... Drrrrkh. _ ” The Rainbow Monster shakes her head slowly -- and that small gesture, along with the hand on his elbow, in concert with Todd’s hand on his other arm, is enough to make him finally give up. 

“Dirk. Let’s go home.”

\--

Miss Marchand is tearful upon their return. Todd sits with her on the steps of the office for most of the afternoon, talking through every detail of the case while Farah assesses final travel expenses and invoices and Dirk stares at the wall, counting the bricks like he used to count dust motes and various indents in the walls of countless examination rooms. 

This one leaves him hollow, with a melancholy that lingers. Second-hand grief. 

Dirk can’t blame their lovely client, who, alone and steeped in so much heartache, writes a cheque to Farah and squeezes his arm before departing their office for the last time. He’s silent as the three of them decamp from the office to their shared apartment upstairs, silent as Farah and Todd chat over oven bake pizza and fizzy pop. He’s silent as Amanda and the Rowdies take their final leave of them, off to their own mission: to find others and try to bridge that gap in the universe. 

The Rainbow Monster gifts him a pink bandana, leans in to hug him one last time, dropping a sloppy kiss on his cheek. He squeezes her back tightly and wants to cry. Does not. Will not.

He’s still silent and Not Crying as Farah eventually leaves to retreat to her own apartment, to Skype Tina and watch a film and do a little second-hand mourning of her own. Dirk’s very nearly jealous of the connection she’s managed to forge with her girlfriend with a hundred miles between them, when he can’t unite a living woman and her (living) dead friend with all of the ineffable power of the universe guiding him. 

This is how he finds himself standing in front of Todd’s bedroom door at one o'clock in the morning. Just. Standing. Unable to muster the energy even to knock.

Finally, as if guided by the power of the universe, the door creaks open on it’s own.

Todd looks up at him in the dark, eyes blinkered open.

“Todd, I’m sorry… I don’t mean to be a bother.”

“You’re not bothering me,” he says, voice roughened with sleep and the lateness of the hour. “Dirk, what is it?”

There’s movement in the dark, as Dirk’s eyes adjust he recognizes the shift on the mattress. Todd lifts the the corner of the blanket, scooting back toward the edge. Open invitation. He moves tentatively, strangling the part of him that wants to run, to throw himself under his friend’s protective cover and nest there. 

He climbs into bed, turning his back and clinging to the edge… only to feel Todd’s solid arm slide around his waist and pull him toward the center of the mattress. Until he’s tucked against his friend, chest to back. The gulf bridged.

“Don’t fall.”

“I won’t,” he says. Todd’s bed is a double, unlike the king-sized bed they had in the motel. And, as before, he doesn’t want to move away. “I like this.”

“I do, too.” Todd’s answering whisper is like strings being cut, being pulled from a guillotine at the last second, just before the blade can give him a permanent haircut. Dirk feels pliant, disarmed, and it gives him courage to say what he does next.

“I think... I may  _ need _ this.” For now, for tomorrow, for the rest of his life.

“Okay.”

“There are other things I  _ don’t _ need,” he adds, hysteria bleeding back into some of the syllables at the edges. He focuses on the immediate sensory data to ground him: the cool sheets, soft pillow, Todd’s hand on his arm. “I will do them if you want to, but... I don’t need them.”

“I’ve never really needed much, Dirk,” Todd says, neither placating nor bargaining. Loud and clear and truthful. “I went along with a lot of stuff when I was younger because it was easier than explaining myself. I don’t want  _ you _ to do that.”

Dirk turns over to face him.

“So… we’re agreed then? Are we agreed?” he asks, a small part of him disbelieving, pre-maturely mortified, rushing to clarify even as he means every word. “What are we agreeing to? Precisely?”

Todd, to his luck, seems more amused by this reaction than anything else.

“Go to sleep, Dirk,” he smiles in the dark, reaching over to replace his arm around the taller man’s waist. Both of their heads on the same pillow, warm breath on his face. “We’ll talk about it more in the morning.”

“Yes,” Dirk breathes. “Good.”

Good.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the Oh Darling song of the same name. Project Wraith is one of the unintroduced Blackwing subjects listed on the graphic that the production team originally released after series 1. “Wraith,” of course, means ghost. The jailbreak that ended the original Blackwing project is described in the original show bible and, based on Priest’s intimations in series 2, adding Vogel to Project Incubus seems to have been the catalyst for things going off the rails (for the CIA, anyway). 2400 Motel, like Kids Market, is a real place -- however, the art deco furnishings and attached garages are actually a borrowed detail from Coral Court Motel, a former historical site along Route 66 in North America. Dirk’s “I was little, they were big” line is a call back to Bart, but it’s also an homage to Tanya Komarova, the abandoned child of unknown origins in _Doctor Zhivago_.


End file.
